Makers & Designers

Omar Ramsden was one of the leading designers of silverware in England. Born in Sheffield in 1873, he spent several childhood years in Illinois, USA before returning to the UK in 1887 where he was apprenticed to a firm of silversmiths. Having picked up some of the technicalities of his trade, Omar went to the Sheffield School of Art and won a number of awards and prizes; it was whilst at the art school he met Alywn Carr - with whom he was to form one of the 20th century’s most successful silversmith partnerships - the pair took a year out to travel extensively through Europe before setting up their own studio in London where they employed a team of enamellers and engravers. Their work enjoyed huge popularity during the early part of the 20th century; Omar was the commercial brains of the partnership and gained many institutional and ecclesiastical commissions. When the partnership broke up in 1919, he kept on the London studio and the staff, where he continued working until his death in 1939.